Incarnate
by onceandfutureinfinity
Summary: Merlin has been waiting for a thousand and one years for the once and future king to return, and he's finally coming back. A Merlin/DW crossover. Dedicated to lostinmysins..
1. Chapter I

The paper boat, drifting in lazy spirals across the surface of the lake, looked a ghostly star, painted on dark, velvety water. It occasionally quivered slightly as it bobbed up and down on the gentle tide, dusty moonlight hitting the planes of the bow and stern, casting strange up-and-down shadows on the water.  
A whispery, almost hazy voice breathed out a command, the words wafting across the water: "_Atberan mónaflyen búta_," the voice murmured. As a pair of faintly golden lights glowed briefly in the stygian, silky night, the boat moved in a near-straight line across the surface of the water, picking up immense speed, before succumbing to the water's deathly, dangerous embrace and sinking below the waves. A thin ripple spread across the calm of the lake, before all traces of the boat had disappeared.

"Hello! Laptop, give me!"  
Jeff Angelo - a very British twenty-six-year-old with a sharply-sculpted face and a host of unlikely and downright _disgusting _sexual penchants - looked up in horror as the Doctor - the overeager, wide-smiled Doctor, with his strange eyes and floppy hair - attempted to grab Jeff's computer from him.  
"No, no, no, no, wait, hang on!" yelped Jeff, trying desperately to close down all his tabs (and there were a _lot_ of them). Despite the fact Jeff was very obviously protesting, and very obviously didn't want anybody taking his laptop, no matter what grotesque shapeshifting alien was taking over the world, the Doctor yanked it out of his hands anyway.

"Blimey! Get a girlfriend, Jeff!" the Doctor exclaimed, recoiling in horror at the tabs that Jeff hadn't shut down.  
"Well if you'd given me time to close them -" began Jeff, when the door swung open again. He sighed in exasperation. "Gran."  
Jeff's grandmother had concern and worry smeared all over her face, which generally had friendly features and a permanent smile. "What are you doing?" she asked, not bothering with any pleasantries.  
The Doctor looked up at her, with a familiar "I-_finally_-get-to-explain-something-scientific-and-complicated-  
to-someone" expression. "The sun's gone wibbly," he explained, "so right now, somewhere out there, there's going to be a big video conference call." His fingers danced across the keyboard. "All the experts in the world panicking at once, and do you know what they need? Me." Jeff rolled his eyes and sighed pointedly, though the Doctor was oblivious and carried on. "And - look - here they all are! All the big boys. NASA, Jodrell Bank, Tokyo Space Centre, Patrick Moore."

Gran blushed violently and appeared very flustered. "Ooh, I do like Patrick Moore,"  
"I'll get you his number. Watch out, he's a devil, he is," the Doctor grinned.  
Suddenly Jeff realised what the Doctor was doing, and cried out, rather pointedly, "You can't hack in on a call like that!"  
The Doctor flashed something at the webcam, and turned slightly to Jeff. "Ca-" suddenly, he broke off. "Jeff. Jeff. Hmm... Jeff," he stood up to look properly at Jeff, who also stood, towering at least a head over the Doctor. The Doctor looked him up and down, looking more-than-slightly thrown off balance.

"I've seen you before - before I met you earlier. Where have I seen you before, Jeff?"  
Frowning, Jeff replied, "I don't think we met before.."  
"Shut up, Jeff, I'm thinking," said the Doctor brusquely. All of a sudden, it hit him: he knew where Jeff was from, where they'd met before, how the Doctor knew him already. "Got to go," he said quietly, and disappeared, leaving nothing but the vague scent of tweed in the air.  
"And to think I'd poured his tea in the good china," sniffed Gran disapprovingly.  
"Yeah," muttered Jeff, half-listening. "The good china."

The house hadn't changed for as long as the Doctor could remember. It was a fairly large, fairly uninteresting grey brick house that had been built in the sixth century and - to the Doctor's disbelief - maintained by magic ever since, so it permanently looked new, if slightly unstable. He clattered up the gravel path, not bothering to knock – the door was rarely locked anyway. He pushed the door open, and walked slowly into the house, with its familiar scent of flowers, herbs and smoke.

"Merlin?" he called. "You in?"  
There was a muffled crash from somewhere in the house, then a figure appeared at the top of the stairs. "Doctor!"  
The Doctor grinned briefly at his friend, then let his face fall into a more serious expression, but it was hard to stay that way. "Merlin, let me make you a cup of tea. We need to talk."

"Um – sure," Merlin answered, walking down the stairs two-at-a-time. "Has something happened? It's not the Cybermen, is it? They are called Cybermen, aren't they?" he asked, remembering the Doctor's tales of the strange metal men, recounted in quiet voices late at night over hot drinks.  
"Ah, my old mates the Cybermen! No, nothing about them, they've not been bothering us. It's about - come on, then," the Doctor said, bouncing into the kitchen. "Let's have that famous herbal tea of yours. Well, I say famous, really it's just me and Adelaide who..." he trailed off. "Right. Tea. Now, where's your kettle?"  
Merlin followed the Doctor into the kitchen, where he was stumbling around, searching for the kettle. Merlin shook his head fondly, taking two mugs printed with paintings of Arthurian legends and lazily dropping teabags into them, filling the cups with cold water straight from the tap.

"Ah, Merlin, the thing about tea is... Oh! Of course! Why would Emrys need a kettle?"  
"Doctor."  
"Sorry. I mean Merlin."

Ignoring the Doctor, who continued to witter on about something - a theorem, and some diagrams, from what Merlin caught - the wizard hovered one of his hands over the mugs and said, slowly, "_Eaum abywan_." Slowly, the water began to bubble, steam rising from the mugs like a dragon's coils, like hair that falls in waves and curls, like the spiralling lick of the ocean. After a couple of minutes, when the liquid was hot all the way through, Merlin handed a mug to the Doctor.

"Lovely, lovely. Through to the living room?" without waiting for a response, the Doctor wandered into the room across the hall and dumped himself - not very gracefully - into a sofa, sinking into the cushions.  
Merlin followed, slightly unsure, but always trusting of the Doctor. Because out of everyone he knew, Merlin trusted the Doctor the most, because when he'd been lost and broken and scared it was the Doctor who'd found him and repaired him, as best he could. So no matter how unsure the Doctor made him, Merlin would always trust him, no matter what.

"Merlin, my magical little wizard pal," the Doctor began, cheerful as ever. "Sit down. Take a seat. Have a chair. Good things, chairs, aren't they? Love a chair. Very... chairy. Very useful. Nice to have a chair on hand, for, you know, sitting, and things. Mostly just sitting... sorry. Right."  
Merlin half-scowled, unable to be truly annoyed at his nearly-best-friend. "You said you needed to talk," he reminded the Doctor.  
"Yes, very important. Merlin, listen..."  
"Doctor, just tell me."  
The overeager smile gone from his face, the Doctor looked at Merlin with a frown. "Percival's back."  
_Percival_.  
The memories flooded back at once: Sir Percival. Brave, loyal, intimidating Percival, who'd pledged loyalty to Arthur without hesitating, without lingering. Sir Percival, who had the strongest sense of justice Merlin had ever known, who'd die for what he thought was right. Caring, selfless Sir Percival.

"Doctor, Percival – Percival's _dead_, Doctor!" snapped Merlin. "I watched him die! I was with him!"  
The Doctor seemed to think very carefully about his next sentence: "Merlin, do you remember what the Great Dragon said? About reincarnation, rebirth, whatever you call it?"

How could he forget? Hadn't Merlin been living on the Great Dragon's words for all this years, on the belief that Arthur was the Once and Future King who'd rise again? How he'd waited, by the lake, watching and waiting every day for the King of Camelot to return. How he'd died a little bit more every day when Arthur didn't come. How he was starting to lose faith in the dragon, in the Doctor, in everything.  
"Merlin, you know what this means. Sir Percival's been reincarnated and he's _here_. Don't you see? Don't you get what it means?"  
Despite the fact the Doctor already knew that Merlin, of course, knew what it meant, he answered without being asked.

"Arthur's coming back."


	2. Chapter II

"Hello, Gran!" the Doctor yelped, bouncing into Jeff's room. "Jeff, you're still here, lovely, I've found someone to meet you!"

Jeff scowled and looked up. "Doctor, you've hacked in on a top-secret international call between some of the world's most important people, and you're playing _matchmaker_? Doctor, the President's been on here! The American one!"

The Doctor looked mildly impressed, then replied, "I'm not matchmaking, Jeff, unless you – well, from what I saw earlier, you're very ungay – sorry, I'm wittering on, could talk for ages about gay people – Oscar Wilde, he was brilliant, what a laugh. Loved a drink. Or eight. Anyway, no, it's not matchmaking. Silly Jeff."

A crackly voice broke the ensuing silence: "Who was your lady friend?"  
"Patrick, behave!" the Doctor said, waving a finger at the screen absent-mindedly. "Now, Jeff, don't go fainting or anything. We don't want that. Are you ready?"  
"U-um, yeah,"  
"Good." The Doctor glanced towards the door. "Merlin?"

Jeff gasped as possibly the best-looking man he'd ever seen walked into the room. He was very tall, and thin – not unlike Slenderman – and he had dark hair that fell casually over adorable, large ears. The bluest eyes Jeff had ever seen pierced out from his face, emphasized by dark eyelashes and the sharpest cheekbones Jeff could ever have imagined. The Doctor's friend was _gorgeous._

"Jeff, this is Merlin. Merlin, Jeff, although you know him better by—"

"Percival," breathed Merlin.

"It's, um, Jeff. But Percival's OK."

Merlin shook his head slightly. "You just look a lot like someone I used to know." He laughed slightly. "A very long time ago."

Jeff smiled shyly. "I wish I _had _known you a long time ago."

Abruptly, the Doctor interrupted, sitting down heavily on the bed next to Jeff. "Right, Jeff, listen. You too, Merlin, we'll need your help. Jeff, listen to me. In ten minutes, you're going to be a legend. In ten minutes, everyone on that screen is going to be offering you any job you want. But first, you have to be magnificent-"

Merlin cut in, "I don't think Jeff will find that a problem." Jeff couldn't help but notice how Merlin's eyes lit up when he said that.  
"-yes, Merlin, I'm sure he won't. Jeff, you have to make them trust you – get them working. This is it, Jeff. Right here, right now. This is when you fly. Today's the day you save the world. But before that, Merlin's got something to –" he faltered slightly " – to show you, right, Merlin?"

Merlin nodded slowly, elegantly. "We really, really need your help, OK, Jeff?" his voice had a slight Irish lilt, an almost sing-song quality.

Jeff attempted to mirror Merlin's graceful head-nodding movement. "What is it?"  
The Doctor grinned playfully. "Jeff. We're going to make you remember."  
He frowned. "Remember what?"  
Planting himself carefully on the bed, the Doctor turned to Jeff and smiled softly. "Remember the king."

Sunlight glinting against blond hair and sharp silver. The crunch of knights' boots and horses' hooves on gravel paths, the scent of pinewood and spring foliage carried on the musky spring breeze. A procession of men in chainmail and red, carrying shields emblazoned with golden dragons, led by a boy – a man, even – who seemed to have personified the golden dragon himself, with his courage and strength and the fire that burned in him, the fire of thousands of years of royalty that could be quenched by no mortal hand.

Every image Jeff saw was nearly tangible, wisps of hazy smoke spiralled over it, obscuring the brief glimpses of faces he caught. Blue eyes, bright and clear like springwater, smooth ebony skin and powerful jawlines, the broadest shoulders Jeff had ever seen. Suddenly – before he was ready, before craving for more had been satisfied – the images distorted and curled upwards, twisting and fading until they nearly faded – until they were replaced with different images.

The same men, but in various states of death. Blood smeared the face of the dark-skinned man, whose strength appeared to have been sapped in what looked like battle, like war. The beast of a man with those incredible broad shoulders lay on his side, with wounds that were long and deep breaking various areas of his skin. The owner of those blue eyes, that blond hair, stumbled, alone, through the bodies – both living and dead – of his men, his hand pressed against the spot where a sword had bitten his side. Blood gushed from it, and his face was no longer beautiful and brave, but bruised, bloodied, broken. The entire picture warped and crumpled as the blond-haired man fell to the ground, and the last swirls of life ebbed out of him.

Jeff's vision snapped as Merlin's cool fingers left his temples. They looked into each other's eyes, and Jeff saw a burning intensity in Merlin's that almost scared him.

"Merlin." The Doctor's voice came quiet and kind. "Did Jeff see exactly what you saw?"

"Most of it. The important parts. The Knights, and the Battle of Camlann. Elyan, Gwaine, Percival."

"And Arthur?"

The fire in Merlin's eyes was replaced with water as they flooded with tears. "And Arthur," he whispered, rubbing his eyes fiercely. "I'm sorry," he said, turning to Jeff. "But he –" the Doctor cleared his throat loudly "-_we_ thought you needed to see."

"But—" Jeff frowned. "What was it? That I had to see, I mean."

Merlin bit his lip. The action was adorable, and Jeff felt his stomach somersault with desire.  
"It was you, Jeff. Before you came here."

"What?" he looked up the Doctor, then back at Merlin, desperate for either of them to expand, to explain, to tell him what mind games they were playing and why they were so important. That is, if they were important at all, and not just some test of the Doctor's, some sort of trial in which Jeff had to prove his worthiness.

The Doctor and Merlin exchanged subtle nods, and the latter of the two looked at Jeff, his eyes suddenly looking like the ones Jeff had so briefly glimpsed moments before.

"It's time for you to hear your story, Jeff."


	3. REINCARNATED

Okay, so I owe you all a HUGE apology for abandoning this fic! The honest truth is, I completely forgot about it (I've had a lot going on this year) which I know is no excuse but it WILL be continuing as soon as I've finished the next chapter, which will be long and beautiful and (hopefully) make up for me being unable to commit to remembering to finish one fic. I've planned for it to be quite long, and hopefully interesting, and Chapter Three will be great. I promise. Thank you to everyone who's read/reviewed/favourited 33 it means a lot to me. I hope you've not all totally given up before this version of Merlin's story has finished!

So far, the Doctor and Merlin have both met Jeff/Percival, and Merlin's shown him a glimpse of Percival's past life and they're about to tell him a (slightly abridged) story about Arthur, Camelot, and Sir Percival's life. Oh, and there's a shapeshifting alien loose on planet Earth that the Doctor really should get around to dealing with, instead of drinking herbal tea and listening to Merlin's tales of Albion and the Once and Future King. (Get it together, Doctor.)

That was partly me reminding you, but also reminding myself. Urgh. No more writing hiatuses, EVER. I've missed this.

All my love + apologies,

~ciara xxxx


End file.
